India: New Bill Likely for Pesticide Price Control

The government is planning to wield complete control over fixing prices of pesticides to ensure farm chemicals remain affordable and are easily available to farmers, writes Rituraj Tiwari at The Economic Times. For this, it is likely to introduce the long-pending Pesticide Management Bill in Parliament, replacing the Insecticides Act, 1968, whose rules have become obsolete and lack deterrence against violations of law.

“The central government would constitute an authority which shall fix the price at which notified pesticides are to be sold. Currently, there is no mechanism to regulate the pricing and farmers are at the mercy of companies,” a senior agriculture ministry official told ET on condition of anonymity. “Moreover, there would be a central pesticide board having adequate representation of farmers to take care of farmers’ interest while registering any new chemical for use.”